Clinton To State

I might do some rambling here so deal with it.

While a recently released statement from her Senate office says such calls are premature, pretty much everybody else says Senator Clinton's move to State is a done deal.

I'm lukewarm on the pick and will probably remain that way until we see Hillary and Obama in action. I think anybody who says otherwise is doing a whole hell of a lot of speculating and not much reporting, but hey that is what the traditional media is for. Anyway, I like the pick in the sense that our Madame Secretary is going to demand the attention of whoever she meets with right off the bat. I also don't think that Clinton gives up what is essentially a Senate seat for life to head someplace where there is going to be little work to do. To me, the pick seems like a pretty clear signal that Obama wants to be ready to get to work right away.

I do, however, have some big concerns. Lost in the primary race was the fact that Clinton and Obama were as about as close as you could get on almost every issues except foreign policy. Clinton was a lot close to the McCain/Bush approach than she was to Obama's. Normally, I wouldn't think this would be much of a problem. However, the number of leaks that come from the Clinton camp might make it one. If we open negotiations with the Taliban or Iran do we run the risk of leaks from the Clinton camp hurting those negotiations?

My second big concern is who does Clinton bring with her and who do they hire on. Spencer Ackerman sums up my thoughts best.

Clinton herself isn’t so much the problem, they say. It’s the loyalists and traditional thinkers Clinton is likely to bring into the State Dept. if she becomes secretary.

And the reason why this is a problem is best summed up with this comment.

“Basically, you have all of these young, next-generation and mid-career people who took a chance on Obama” during the primaries, said one Democratic foreign-policy expert included in that cohort. “They were many times the ones who were courageous enough to stand up early against Iraq, which is why many of them supported Obama in the first place. And many of them would likely get shut out of the mid-career and assistant-secretary type jobs that you need, so that they can one day be the top people running a future Democratic administration.”

This isn't to say that Clinton should bring in only Obama people. If she is going to be able to do her job, she needs to be able to hire the people she feels she can work with best. What she needs to do is show the same courage that Obama has by selecting somebody who disagreed with him so strongly.